The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s2.t5: 5. Definitions of the Âtman Vais'vânara

c9.s2.t5.1

Owing to the ambiguity of the word the conception of the âtman, like that of Brahman, gives rise to several misunderstandings. One of these was due to the fact that beyond the cosmical meaning of the âtman as first principle of the universe there was discerned its psychical meaning, the embodiment of this principle in the self. It is thus with the five Brâhmans, who in Chând. 5. 11 meet and propound the question :—" What is our âtman, what is Brahman?" They betake themselves with this question to Uddâlaka Âruṇi, who they know is even now engaged in studying the Âtman Vais'vânara, i.e. the âtman as the all-pervading first principle of the universe. Uddâlaka mistrusts (rightly, as his later answer proves) his ability to satisfy them, and all six proceed according to king As'vapati Kaikeya for instruction concerning the Âtman Vais'vânara. The king first asks the six Brâhmans in succession what it is that they "worship" as the âtman. He assumes, as this expression shows, that the Brâhmans who apply to him for instruction are still entangled in the error of regarding the âtman as an object of worship existing outside of themselves, like a new kind of divinity. This assumption is confirmed, inasmuch as the six inquirers explain the âtman in succession as the heaven, the sun, the wind, space, water, and the earth, therefore as something objective. The king rejoins :—" You all, to judge from your answers, conceive of this Âtman Vais'vânara as though it were something separate from yourselves, and thus you consume your food. He however who worships this Âtman Vais'vânara thus (placing his outstretched hand on his head from the forehead to the chin) as a span long (prâdes'amâtram abhivimânam), he consumes the food in all worlds, in all beings, in all selves. And of this very Âtman Vais'vânara (measured on the head as a span long) the bright (heaven) is the head, the all-pervading (sun) is the eye, the (wind) on its lonely path is the breath, manifold (space) is its trunk, its bodily frame, riches (water) its bladder, the earth its feet." The suggested movement of the hands, without which the passage is unintelligible, may with certainty be inferred from the original of our text in S'atap. Br. 10. 6. 1, where they are actually made. In other respects also the original passage referred to possesses several advantages, especially in its discussion not of the *Âtman Vais'vânara*, but of a symbolical interpretation of *Agni Vais'vânara*, "the all-pervading fire," as a first principle of the universe. In this light the defective answers of the six interlocutors are far more intelligible than if they inquire, in the first instance, as is the case in the secondary representation of the Chândogya, concerning the âtman as "Brahman" (first principle). The question in this form and the inquiry for the *Âtman Vais'vânara* would, strictly speaking, exclude from the very beginning such erroneous answers as were given by all six Brâhmans.